


Getting Back Up

by emmykay



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Advice, Canonical Character Death, Family, Gen, Mentions of Cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-09-29 20:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20441873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmykay/pseuds/emmykay
Summary: When you're Spiderman, you always get back up.  That means you know what up is.  Since Peter B. Parker has been sucked into this new dimension that was weirdly like yet unlike his own dimension, it was hard to know which way, exactly, was up.





	Getting Back Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).

> I love this movie so much, I'm so happy I came upon your prompts that let me do something with all these feelings!
> 
> Prompts:  
-Peter just wants one more hug from Aunt May, even if she's not his Aunt May. He's very awkward in going about requesting this.  
-Peter and May share a drink. What do they talk about?  
-Any interaction between these two. Peter's life is in shambles, including his May having recently died. I just want more feelings!

When you're Spiderman, you always get back up. That means you know what up is.

Since Peter B. Parker has been sucked into this new dimension that was weirdly like yet unlike his own dimension, it was hard to know which way, exactly, was up. Never mind the irregularly timed agonizing spasms which signaled cellular break down. Which, he was sad to realize, seemed among the least of his recent problems.

He remembered reading about some NASA experiments that put spiders into space. The spiders made some wrecked-looking webs, but eventually settled to something similar to but not as robust as their earth-bound originals. Like the spiders didn't quite know how to behave without gravity, and they had to learn. That's what interdimensional travel felt like - he was in wild science experiment that made nothing feel quite right and he was about to start some huge and genuinely painful learning curve.

So, there he was, standing in front of the little house at 20 Ingram Street, Forest Hills, Queens with some other Spider-people. This wasn't exactly his house, but so much like that house, the size and shape, the color of the siding - that house that had been the shelter of his dreams, his secrets, his rebellions. So much a part of him and his history that he didn't even know what style it could be called beyond his Aunt May's house. The prototype of what a house should be. The house he had had to empty, clean and sell a couple of years ago after she had died. The house to which he had never returned.

Until now. This felt like a bad idea. Such a bad idea. He shifted uncomfortably. "Hey, maybe this isn't - "

"You guys are all very sweet-"

He froze. Aunt May's voice. He never thought he'd hear it again.

"But no more fans today, please."

The door opened, and surrounded by the interior light, stood Aunt May. No, it wasn't his Aunt May, but so close, so close to the picture in his head, it felt like a punch in the face. It felt like he had been turned upside down, and given drugs, thrown into space and then flung backward into time.

"I'm not ready for this," he murmured.

When her eyes took him in, it seemed as though she was feeling the same thing, as the Louisville Slugger dropped from her hand and clattered against the steps. "Peter?"

He was talking, tried talking, but the words were coming out without a lot of sense, a lot like the words would come out when he was 16 and out late - because this was Aunt May. And she was touching his face like she couldn't believe he had managed to return in one piece from one of his more ill-fated high school adventures. And she got it, she totally got the situation they were all in.

"You look tired, Peter. And older. And thicker." Then, in that familiar born-and-bred Queens accent, "Ah, jeez, are those sweatpants?"

The house was the same. Smelled the same, same furniture covered in the same plastic, all sitting in the same place. But that underground lair. Holy shit. Sure, Peter B. had a lair, too. It was even underground. If you could call a storage unit that came with the apartment a "lair," stuffed to the gills with all the extra shit he couldn't or didn't want to fit into his studio apartment. Guess this Peter Parker managed his money a little bit better than he had.

Then Miles disappeared. Peter B. would worry about it, but for now, they all had their jobs.

Peni was working on the goober, Noir was working on the Rubik's cube, which left Peter B. working on making small talk with the rest of the Spider-gang.

"What's different in your dimension?" Gwen asked.

"I'm going to say it, Doc Ock in this dimension is hot," Peter B. said.

Gwen winced. "I don't know if you should be saying that."

"Take away the evil, the unbridled ambition, the homicidal tendencies, keep the tentacles - "

"Really," Gwen said. "You need to stop."

"What's the Doc Ock in your dimension like?" Noir asked, looking up from the cube. Peter B. wondered how he even conceived of color.

"He - and it is a he - and he's kind of beefy looking - " Gwen replied.

Noir nodded.

"Bad haircut. Okay-looking, kinda old. Still likes green, though," Gwen said.

"My Doc Ock is a Nazi sympathizer who works in their secret labs," Noir said. "Creepy glasses."

Peter B. turned to Peter Porker. "I bet the Doc Ock in your dimension is actually an octopus."

"No," Peter Porker replied. "Don't assume. He's actually a cuttlefish with pretensions."

"Who wants tea?" Aunt May asked, hovering at the entry of the kitchen.

"I'll help," Peter B. said, getting up.

She put the kettle onto the gas stove and leaned against the range. "How are you, Peter? Really?"

"I'm fine, yup, just fine," he said. "After all the talking, it sounds like my dimension was a loser compared to this one. My favorite burger joint is still around, Doc Ock is hot, your Peter hasn't ruined his marriage or his credit history, he's got this sweet lair - "

"Don't," Aunt May said, anger rising in her voice.

Peter B. paused. "What?"

"You are still alive in your dimension." Her blue eyes turned flinty. "That's a very good dimension, in my book."

He stopped completely, embarrassed. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," she said, deflating. She gestured helplessly around the kitchen, to the empty chairs around the table, to him. "It's just. New."

"Aunt May - my Aunt May - always called me a wiseacre. Never know when to shut up."

"Wiseacre?"

"She was older than you - she was born during the Great Depression."

"Is she still - ?" May stepped forward, interested.

He shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Peter," she said, regretful.

"It's been a couple of years. She was over 80." He cleared his throat. He didn't think about it much. He pulled open a drawer, looking for the spoons - nope, in this universe, this drawer was the one full of junk. Not looking up, he said, "If you could, would you mind, you know, getting regular mammograms, if you don't already?"

"That's how she - ?"

"Yeah," Peter B. said. Next drawer didn't have the spoons either. "I know that doesn't mean anything with the different dimensions, but it would make me feel better."

"All right," she agreed. "I will." She mused. "Cancer's not great. But. Natural causes at 80. Not bad."

A shrill whistle broke the air. She went to take the kettle off the heating element.

"You like mint or black?"

"Aunt May?" He didn't know why, but he felt he didn't have a lot of time left and he needed to ask.

"Yes, Peter?"

"How did it feel, having to take an annoying little kid in? When that was the last thing you probably thought you were ever going to have to do?"

She looked at him, her eyes clear and honest. "It was the most important thing Ben and I ever did."

"I don't know if I want to have kids," Peter B. blurted.

May nodded, slowly. "Sometimes you don't know anything about how you feel until you're in that situation." She pulled a little tea bag out of a box, plonked it into a china cup, then poured some hot water in. Then, with a bare pause, she pulled a tea bag from another box and put that one into a tea cup. "I hope you like mint."

"MJ wants - wanted kids. I think we got divorced because I couldn't decide."

"It's a hard decision. For some people. It's a big responsibility."

"She even converted for me, so I think maybe she feels she got sold a pig in a poke - " Peter B. halted. Meeting Peter Porker really was going to change some of his phrasing.

"You Catholic?" Aunt May asked, curious.

"Jewish. Her family's Presbyterian."

"Ah."

"You?"

"Episcopalian."

He continued. "It's dangerous - the way I live."

"Life is dangerous," she said. She pulled the tea bag out by the corner and bobbed it into the water, watching how the darkness of the tea bled into the rest of the water. "Especially yours. That's true. But you can't protect everybody all the time. Not even you. Did she know about the superhero thing?"

"Yes." He looked at her, wanting to lie, but unable to. "No. I mean, I don't think she remembers me telling her - she got brainwiped and cloned at least twice since we started dating, but I'm pretty sure told her and not one of the clones."

"Telling her, the real her, and making sure she remembers, would help. One way or another, it might make her see why you're feeling the way you are. I'm sorry, though, about the divorce."

"It's okay. At least Aunt May didn't see it."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry."

"I'm not saying you should have done anything different. I'm sure there's a version of me out there, somewhere, childless and happy. And maybe another that married a different man, or - " a smile quirked up her mouth, "- woman - "

"Aunt May - "

"Or there's a version of me that never got to meet Peter Parker, same way that there's a version of you raised by your parents that never needed me or your Uncle Ben. All I am sure about is the person I am now. For all the risks and things I could have never guessed would happen, I was honored to have raised Peter."

"Thanks."

She handed him a cup and saucer. "Drink your tea."

"You're not supposed to have kids until you know you want them, right?"

"You keep trying, huh?" she said, a funny look in her eye.

"You always said I would poke and poke and poke until I figured something out."

"That's true," she smiled. "Wanting kids - I can't tell you what to do, Peter. You do the best you can."

She cleared her throat. "As for what you're supposed to do or not do - that's what people say, now," she said, with a little shrug. "It wasn't like that when I got married. I think we wanted kids, but everybody who got married was supposed to want kids. I don't know if we knew the difference. We tried for a while, but it wasn't happening, and trying anything different would have cost a lot of money we didn't have. So we started to make a life for just the two of us. Then we lost Richard and Mary. Then - " and she smiled, a complicated smile with misty eyes.

"Then - and there was Peter. And it was like something I can't even explain - unexpected, and tragic, the way he came to us, it turned our lives upside down and I can't imagine what it must have been like for him."

"It was - hard," Peter B. said, softly.

"But Peter was never, never unwanted. A gift, maybe, given in the worst circumstances."

"That's pretty heavy," he said. "Don't think I was ready to hear it."

"I never said it, and then it was too late. I needed to say it, to Peter," she said. She took a sip. "So, Peter," she turned to him. "You really okay? Not just tired? Ready to go back?"

"Sure. I mean, I got a sweet studio after the divorce, with a nice view of the brick wall next door."

She sighed. "I don't mean to be speaking for your Aunt May, but I'm going to. You gotta open yourself up to the possibility of joy."

"Joy?"

"Joy. You gotta have hope for something outside of yourself."

"But - "

"Yes, joy makes you vulnerable, because it reveals what's most important to you, but you're never going to be able to shut off all the places people can get to you. If you could, you'd be like Doc Ock, or King Pin, this closed off creature who only lives for themselves. And you are not like that."

"I can't - "

"Whether that's having kids or not having kids, just decide. Don't default to a no because you can't decide. Time passes by anyway, and you're not getting any younger." Her face rearranged itself into a serious expression. "Are you seeing anyone?"

"I just got a divorce, Aunt May!"

"A therapist, Peter. I mean someone you can talk to. With Aunt May and the divorce, never mind the superhero stuff, you need to see someone."

"No." At her admonishing look, he said quickly, "I'll- I'll think about it."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I will."

"Good." She smiled, taking a sip of her tea.

"Hey. Uh." He put down his cup and hunched over the counter, looking at the familiar figure of his aunt in her kitchen, longing stirring inside him.

"You got another question of multi-universal importance that you need your aunt's advice for?" she teased.

"Um. No - I just - " he stood, and shuffled over to her awkwardly. He stood next to her, looking at her through the corner of his eyes, uncertain what to do with his hands.

"Quit looming." She put down her cup and held her arms open.

He moved into her hug, tentative, and then, a little firmer around the thin, cardigan-clad shoulders. She patted his back. He sniffed her hair - it smelled like she had gone to the hairdressers and asked them to use the lemon-scented shampoo. That, Icy Hot cream for sore muscles, and a little bit of something musty from deep in a closet. That was Aunt May. Warmth leaked in around the coldness that had settled inside him for so long, he couldn't really remember the last time he had felt warm.

She pulled away, and he could see the moisture gathering in the corners of her eyes. "Thank you, Peter. I needed that."

"No, Aunt May, thank you."

* * *

They had saved the multiverse - _Miles_ had saved the multiverse, and god, he was so proud of that kid - and Peter B. wasn't certain if he had wanted to come back to his universe, but here he was.

"You sure you want to do this?" MJ asked, as they walked down the sidewalk.

"Yeah."

They walked by 20 Ingram Street, and he saw the actual house he had grown up in. The size and shape were right, but someone had painted the siding. Added some kind of trim. Some bicycles were pulled up to the front. Two small children and a dog burst out of the front door, making an immense racket - followed by a woman's voice calling out "Kids!"

This wasn't his house anymore, not his Aunt May's house, either. A new family had moved in, with all their dreams, making it their house. New kids, who might already have secrets, rebellions. He exhaled, releasing all the tension in his shoulders.

"You okay?" MJ asked, looking up at him, a worry line creasing her forehead.

"I'm okay," he said, nodding. He took her hand. She gave his hand a little squeeze. "I'm really okay." He smiled.

It felt like, for the first time in a long time, Peter B. Parker was beginning to know which direction up really was.


End file.
